2 – existing or occurring inside a particular country; not foreign or international.

3 – a person who is paid to help with cleaning and other menial tasks in a person’s home.

4 – BRITISH informal

a violent quarrel between family members, especially a couple.

“they are often called to sort out a domestic”.

Domestic isn’t a violent word it’s a word that indicates something that generally happens within a confined space usually the home, something that is private just between families, something that doesn’t concern others. And that right there is why I think ‘domestic violence’ is such an inappropriate term, because somehow all these so-called domestic violence incidents happen in isolation to all other incidents. Everyday you read somebody’s shocked statement that they didn’t see it coming and the people next door seemed so ordinary and he seemed so nice. How many isolated incidents does it take before the admission is made that ‘domestic violence’ every time it happens is connected to all other incidents of ‘violence including so-called domestic violence’, Because it is common garden,cruel, selfish, graphic, painful,soul-destroying ‘violence’. Generally violence is about control and we live in a society where having and gaining control is seen as a positive thing especially if you are a male. The word ‘domestic’ is used to dilute the word violence with ideas of family and love, it’s also used to conjure the idea of privacy and isolation, the same isolation that is used against many many victims. There is violence against strangers, friends, acquaintances and there is partner violence and this violence is everywhere and more often than not it’s male on male violence, partner or not. Maleon female(partner) just being referred to ‘domestic violence’ serves no-one, it just allows heads to turn away as doors and curtains shut. Time to educate our sons and daughters that relationships shouldn’t be about control but partnerships of equals and that violence isn’t an acceptable way of solving problems or of punishment. I suspect we have a long way to go still.

"I have long argued that the giving of offence, and even hate speech, should be a moral matter but not a matter for the criminal law. That is as true on the football pitch as on the streets. We should always challenge racism. We should also always challenge attacks on liberties in the guise of faux antiracism." Kenan Malik